NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Betty Humphery
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
betty.b.humphery@nasa.gov

News release: 08-028


HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – Marceia Clark-Ingram, an engineer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and a native of Detroit, has received a National Women of Color Technology Award for exceptional professional service.

Career Communication Group's Women of Color magazine and the IBM Corporation presented Clark-Ingram with its “Technology All-Stars” award, recognizing accomplished women of color who are advanced in their careers and have demonstrated excellence as leaders at work and in their communities. She was nominated for her “professional dedication and enthusiasm” on projects for the Materials and Processes Laboratory at the Marshall Center.

Clark-Ingram is a senior material and processes engineer and advanced materials science specialist in the Laboratory Lead Engineers Office of the Materials and Processes Laboratory, part of the Marshall Center’s Engineering Directorate. She also is the primary Materials and Processes Laboratory's technical lead for interfacing with Marshall’s Propulsion Systems Engineering and Integration Office and the Shuttle Environmental Assurance initiative. This initiative supports mission execution through the life cycle of the Space Shuttle Program by identifying materials that may become obsolete as result of environment, health and safety regulations and mitigating these risks through teamwork.

Clark-Ingram began her career at NASA in 1987 when she participated in NASA's Professional Internship Program, working in the Corrosion Branch of the Materials and Processes Laboratory as a chemical engineer. From 1988 to 1992, she served as an analytical chemist in the Analytical and Physical Chemistry Branch of the lab. In 1991, she performed project management duties for the NASA Operational Environment Team as an experimental manufacturing techniques engineer in the Process Engineering Division of the Materials and Processes Laboratory.

She joined the Materials Compatibility and Environmental Engineering Branch of the Materials and Processes Laboratory in 1992 as an aerospace materials engineer, where she supported the development of a NASA-wide program plan for responding to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Clean Air Act regulations and routinely presented NASA’s materials usage data to the EPA.

In 1995, she served as a structural materials engineer for the Materials and Processes Chemistry Group in the Materials and Processes Laboratory. She was a technical lead for the NASA, Environmental Protection Agency and Air Force Interagency Depainting Project, which tested technologies to be used as paint-stripping processes that did not adversely affect the environment.

Clark-Ingram was promoted to team lead in the chemistry group for the Materials Replacement Technology team in 2000. Her duties included technical oversight and program planning for the NASA Principal Center for the Review of Clean Air Act Regulations effort. This effort provided a proactive approach for the evaluation of potential impacts and risks to NASA’s programs due to usage restrictions of targeted materials. Additional responsibilities encompassed technical oversight for the testing operations at Marshall's Materials Combustion Research Facility and Materials Environment Test Complex.

During 2004, she was a test engineer for the Structural Strength Test Branch of the Engineering Directorate. She provided technical support for testing conducted on thermal protection systems at the Materials Environment Test Complex in support of the Space Shuttle Return to Flight effort.

Clark-Ingram earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Ala., in 1985, and a master's degree in 1995 in management sciences from the Florida Institute of Technology at Redstone Arsenal’s satellite facility.

She has earned numerous honors and awards during her career, including a NASA Blue Marble Award in 2005 for excellence in environmental and energy management demonstrated in support of NASA’s mission and an exceptional service medal for outstanding technical contributions to NASA programs in 2000.

Clark-Ingram received the "Technology All-Stars" award in November 2007 at the 12th annual National Women of Color Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Conference in Atlanta. The conference is for minority women in information technology, computer science, information science and digital arts.

Clark-Ingram and her husband, Neal, have two children and live in Madison, Ala.

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